Two topics today. The first is the quality of the images on the blog. The individual images are saved as jpg files which are severely compressed to save space. This results in some loss of definition and in some cases slight changes in colours. Most of my paintings are fairly bright, which is usually how I like to do them. I have found taking pictures of them that correctly capture the colours to be a bit of a challenge. Optimum lighting conditions and camera settings seem to vary quite a bit depending on the painting and the colours used in it. When I haven't been able to get the conditions just right I have decided to err on the side of brightness, so some of the paintings are even brighter on the blog than they are in fact.
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The second topic is a bit of a rant about abstract and mixed media art. I prefer when working to have some idea in mind of what the painting will be about. Even if the painting is just about a feeling rather than a scene, an object or a concrete idea, I prefer that to working in a vacuum. I was at a talk last spring given by an abstract and representational artist whose work I admire. At one point she presented an abstract that had won a prize in a contest. I thought it was beautiful but it didn't call up any feeling or response beyond that. She began her talk by saying she felt that abstract art had to be about something, which opinion I was grateful to hear. At the end of her talk a member of the audience asked her what her prize-winning abstract was about and how she had known when it was finished. She said she didn't know what it was about. but her intuition told her it was about something and also told her when it was finished. Since I had invested at least a little mental energy in trying to understand the painting I felt let down. Perhaps if it had been about something my appreciation of it might have been a little less superficial.
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The paintings I have posted are an abstract (Creation) and a mixed media work with abstract elements (Shore at Night). Creation was done with no planning or forethought and was named after it was finished. The title refers to the explosion which likely marked the beginning of our universe (or that part of it that we know, if we happen to live in a multiverse). It was my first abstract and I am not taken with it. Shore at Night was planned but altered as things proceeded. I Like it a little better.
